This week Sofia Alves leads the Lens Artist Challenge. The theme is Looking Up/Down.

Here are a few photos from past travels that I think fit the challenge.

Looking up

Tall buildings always make me look up. With tomorrow being the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, no other tall building symbolizes looking up like One World Trade Center, the successor to the Twin towers. The photo below was taken on a visit to New York in July 2017.

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One World Trade Center

Another iconic structure that demands looking up — the Eiffel Tower.  This photo was taken on November 12, 2018, the day after ceremonies in Paris  celebrating the armistice that ended the fighting in World War One.  

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The Eiffel Tower. Looking up in this case was a big strain on the cervical vertebrae. Laying on the ground was not an option because of recent rain.

Looking Down

These photos are from a trip to South Africa in June 2017. Cape Point is an impressive headland 45 miles (72 km) south of Cape Town at the end of the Cape Peninsula. This photo is looking down (as much as my fear of heights would allow) to the South Atlantic Ocean 800 feet (244 m) below.

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Cape Point

Cape Point towers over its more famous, but less impressive, neighbor, the Cape of Good Hope, which marks the point when a ship travelling south along the west coast of Africa begins to travel more eastward than southward. In 1488, Bartolomeu Dias became the first European sailor to pass the Cape of Good Hope.

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Looking down on the Cape of Good Hope from Cape Point.

The photo below is looking down on a great white shark on a cage diving excursion to Gansbaai, South Africa, about 90 miles (145 km) southeast of the Cape of Good Hope.  There were plenty of great whites around between three and four meters. 

Unlike the movies, no fins or any other part of the sharks ever broke the surface except when they attacked the bait.  Larger adults had learned going for the bait was a useless endeavor because the crew would yank it out of the water just before the shark bites.  Maybe that’s part of the  reason for the great whites’ seemingly sour disposition.

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Shark Alley between Geyser Rock and Dyer Island.

I hope you enjoyed my version of Looking Up/Down. Thanks for reading.